


Surrender - a songfic

by ledbythreads



Category: Led Zeppelin, Patti Smith - Fandom, Robert Plant - Fandom
Genre: 2019, HetSlash, Multi, RPF, Rock and Roll, Songfic, Trondheim - big challenge fest, bandfic, giftfic, house of riot, lyric quilting, old rock gods encounter each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23717950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/ledbythreads
Summary: I write slash. Patti Smith comes as close as it gets. This is songfic with emphasis on songs - lyric credits given at the end. This work is largely a re-arrangement of the songs listed.Patti Smith and Robert Plant both performed at Trondheim Big Challenge Fest 2019 and Patti Smith sang Elvis' I Can't Help Falling In Love With You to him in the wings - so this is fic about backstage encounters. (edit 18 April 2020 - so @Rogerdalteryautomata was there and I want this to be that gig - but Plant and Smith also were on the same bill at Bergen Fest so I originally wrote if for there)Giftfic for Rog because the ship was her idea
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Robert Plant, Robert Plant/Patti Smith
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	Surrender - a songfic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rogerdaltreysautomata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogerdaltreysautomata/gifts).



The boy was in the hallway drinking a cup of tea

(lemon and honey)

From the other end of the hallway, rhythm still generating

(the set was over)  
A boy, she’s sliding up the hallway

(Long silver wavy hair)  
She merged perfectly with the hallway,  
She merged perfectly, the mirror in the hallway

(She still looks like. Him. Tall. Cool. The eyes)  
  
The boy looked at Robert,

(Stray Cat strut. Honey dripping. Foot up on the wall. Like 1981. Like 1963)

Robert wants to run,

(Catches in his belly. Her eyes)  
but the movie keeps moving as planned

Only fools rush in  
But I can't help…

  
The boy took Robert, she pushed him against the locker,

Some things are meant to be  
Take my hand,  
Take my whole life, too…

  
She drove it in, she drove it home, she drove it deep for Robert

I saw you in a movie - or was it on my wall  
I never dreamed you'd talk to me - I never dreamed at all

He goes under. Sea of memory. Yellow gold curtains like sails of a pirate ship. Elvis in his striped sailor shirt. Feels the deck dip and sway beneath his feet. Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll. So, he rolls with it. With her. Goes under. Pelvis to pelvis. Her hand up in his hair. Go Johnny Go. Gotta lose control. Gotta lose control. Sea of possibility.

  
The boys disappear

Two old gods poised on a ledge of a very high mountain. Eagles of one nest. Time spread out beneath them. His chest beneath her spread fingers.

Her knee between his thighs.

His heart beating like a child’s.

She looks down at him and says, “Oh, pretty boy,  
Can't you show me nothing but surrender?”

Like a river flows  
Surely to the sea  
Darling, so it goes  
Some things are meant to be

Robert. Gets the feeling. He's being surrounded by,

(her mouth on his. She pulls his head back)  
horses, horses, horses, horses

The old thrill. Salt in his blood. Those times with Jimmy in the studio when he knew they would be caught. Wanted it.

  
coming in in all directions

(in the open hallway)

horses, horses, horses, horses

Her hair like,  
white shining silver studs, their noses in flames.

She’s hard against him. Insistent. Hipbones like switchblades. Calloused fingertips against the line of his jaw. Against the pulse at the hollow of his throat. The planes of her face tectonic. Haughty. Her lips soft. Full. Cold.

Kisses gone crazy - come on, tease me 'till I scream  
Promise is a maybe, running through my dream

Do you know how to pony, like bony Maroney?  
Do you know how to twist? well it goes like this, it goes like this

He knows. He Knows.

Fingers looped into her leather belt. He tries to hang on.

Strong arms round him. Soft old t-shirt under the thick serge of her waistcoat.

Her armpits damp with stage sweat. The slightest press of her breasts against his own. He can feel the rhythm hum in the long tendons of her forearms. 

He twists. Twist and Crawl. Twist and Crawl.

Mirror in the bathroom.

Only fools rush in  
But I can't help…

Got to lose control and then you take control,  
Then you're rolled down on your back and you like it like that,  
Like it like that, like it like that, like it like that,  
Then you do the watusi, yeah do the watusi  
  


“Do you ever remember me, baby,  
Did it feel so good?  
'Cause it was just the first time,  
And you knew you would”

Time falls away.

We are gods but I have lost my crown.

You had a Robert once.

Just kids.

You know what I need.

What we need.

You must see it in me too.

Please.

Mamma.

Be my woman who knows.

There is no sea but the sea

(I fall to my knees, sea of possibility)  
  


There is no keeper but the key

(Silver key and a golden cup  
Silver key and a golden cup  
Silver key and a golden cup)

  
  
Except for one who seizes possibilities, one who seizes possibilities.

Have I not?

Every possibility.

Except to love him in the open.

It wasn’t mine to choose.

(Now I take the wine from your loving cup

Mamma, take your time, I won’t spill a drop)  
  


  
the sea around me  
standing there, legs spread like a sailor  
(in a sea of possibilities)

I felt my hand on your knee

  
The waves were coming in like Arabian stallions  
I was gradually lapping into sea horses  
You picked up the beat, and pressed it against my smooth throat  
  


And whom I gonna rock when my man has gone?

You remind me of him.

Let me be you kid

Let me be your kid

Teach me darling

But keep it hid

  
  


And I let it,

deep in  
(the salt in my veins)

  
Dip in to your sea, the sea of possibilities

You started hardening

Like a river flows  
Surely to the sea  
  


  
Dip in to the sea, to the sea of possibilities  
I started hardening in my hand  
And I felt the arrows of desire

I tried to stop it, but it was too warm, too unbelievably smooth,  
Like playing in the sea,

(Baby takes her time, likes to walk by the sea)

in the sea of possibility, the possibility

Two old gods. A god on his knees is still a god.

In the open hallway

Worshiping

Your hand in my hair

Falling down, tendrils

Gold and grey

Your mane like seafoam

Your face. Tectonic.

Time spread out beneath us

On the edge

Eagles of one nest

I hold the key to the sea of possibilities

He holds mine

Still

up there -- there is a sea  
up there -- there is a sea  
up there -- there is a sea  
the sea's the possibility

Two old gods

Worshiping

  
There is no land but the land  
(I am the land)  
There is no sea but the sea  
(salt in my blood)  
  


There is no keeper

There is no key

Your eyes are where the summer lives in pools of quiet fire  
Come mess with my sincerity - go down on my desire  
I feast on your expression - the smile that tells it all  
On my mind forever - forever on my wall  
This is what I cried

There’s just a man  
dancing around  
to the simple  
Rock & roll  
song

  
  
  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> song credits:
> 
> Patti Smith
> 
> from Horses 1975 - 'Land' (Part I Horses; Part II Land of a Thousand Dances; Part III La Mer(de) )  
> [writers: Smith I and III. Kenner II. Domino II]
> 
> which forms the main part of the text
> 
> Robert Plant:  
> from Manic Nirvana 1990 - I Cried [Writers: Plant. Johnstone]
> 
> from Carry Fire 2017 - Keep It Hid [writers: Plant. Adams. Baggot] and allusions to Dance With You Tonight [writers: Plant, Adams, Baggott, Fuller, Smith, Tyson] 
> 
> also as lyricist with Led Zeppelin  
> from Houses of the Holy 1973 - Dancing Days [writers: Page. Plant]  
> from Physical Graffiti 1975 - Ten Years Gone [writers: Page. Plant] 
> 
> Elvis Presley  
> from Blue Hawaii 1961 - I Can't Help Falling in Love With You [writers: Peretti. Creatore. Weiss]
> 
> The Beat  
> from I Just Can't Stop It 1980 - song titles referenced 'Twist and Crawl' and 'Mirror in the Bathroom'
> 
> @thebookhunter / goldragon
> 
> 'A god on his knees but still a god' is from the B - Side of the Goldragon fic 'Only One' 2020
> 
> additional information:  
> I write slash because it is LGBT/ Queer fiction but I also find that writing about female characters (especially perhaps in RPF) and avoiding an objectifying gaze can be frustrating. I don't have that gaze but it is sticky and gets into work when I did not put it there. I want to write about default humans having sex and doing other things like be rock stars. Patti Smith has done a lot to strip a patriarchal gaze off herself and here I try and let her lyrics do the heavy lifting. 
> 
> to Rog - I have no idea if this is anything like how you want it to be. I did not know when I started it would be songfic but I knew Robert and Patti would start in that hallway with the lockers. Dancing to a simple. Rock and Roll. Song.


End file.
